Construction material cost in Chile and what is available

[Space Cat]

We're using 750w infrared heater 24/7 and temperature is ok most of the time (3 small rooms + big kitchen). But I'm thinking about upgrading next winter to a vented kerosene heater or maybe a pellet-based stove (though I don't want to add to this horrible smoke pollution).

Pellets are not very available in Valdivia, we already did our homework. You'll find them but sometimes in a small bags at Sodimac and pricey. You could order them in bulk but only a couple of places would sell them but expensive, no discounts.We also inquired about propane gas central heating but you have to go thru some hoops and is very expensive, a major investment. Wood for us is totally out of the question. The only time I would use it would be to send a message to the Indians so we decided to go with a Toyotomi that covers about a 100 sq meters or so. Because our home is small, well insulated and the air flows to every room, the house feels very cozy. The big plus is......you get instant source of heating!

Could you please share the model name of your Toyotomi? I saw many different ones ranged from $300,000 to $900,000.

[HybridAmbassador]

Toyotomi Laser vented kerosene heater. Toyostove Laser 73 / 730 for house size 1800 ~ 2000 sq feet works as a charm.

The Toyostove Laser 73 is the largest output wall furnace available from Toyotomi. The Toyostove Laser 73 can heat up to 2000 Sq. Ft. of living space for a fraction of alternative heat sources. The Toyostove Laser 73 is a sealed combustion or direct-vent system that uses only outside air for combustion and vents combustion gases directly to the outdoors. This modern high-efficiency model provides safe, comfortable warmth for zone heating or whole house heat.
https://www.toyotomiusa.com/factoryOutl ... uct_id=158

[HybridAmbassador]

Double posting. Deleted...

[admin]

I have several friends with various pellet systems. they work great when they work. Last year there was a sudden shortage of pellets all over the south. I have been hesitant to go with them, simply because the market in the south can be flaky. things come and go from the market for long periods. That said, the supply did increase after that as lots of little producers took up the slack. Still, I can just see after say a big earthquake or something, the pellets disappearing for weeks or months at a time.

There are pellet burners however that will do wood or pellets.

As long as you have some other back-up heat source, or at least a heavy sweater, they should be fine 99% of the time in the south.

I was thinking a few months back about just how much energy and time goes in to getting a load of fire wood in Chile to heat a house. several Guys go and cut (typically) old growth trees in the forest (or super water loving eucalyptus ), often someone else's trees (poaching off private property or national forest). chain saws (gas has to be used), perhaps some splitting. more gas used to get the guys to the forest. they stack it at least once on site, or move it around near the cutting site. At some point they put it on a truck (stack it again) and hall it out of the forest (more gas used). It arrives at your house, wet, and it gets stacked again (at this point something like 100-200 kilos of wood, has been moved 4-5 times, plus splitting, which is like moving 2,000+ kilos per cubic meter of wood, and it has not even made it to the fire yet). so perhaps you decide to store the stuff for a year or two to dry out; which most people do not do, so it yields about 25-50% of the true energy potential of dry wood. Perhaps you have to split it again to make it burn, more energy. There is perhaps at least one more stacking operation after splitting to move it near the house, before moving it all again in to the house to burn. Spend another 10-30 mins getting a fire going (the wetter the better).

Figure something like 10+ hours of labour at least, and several gallons of gas go in to each cubic meter of wood. All to produce more carbon contamination in cities that can not handle it, cutting down less carbon holding trees, to not really produce all that much energy, and burning the equivalent of a couple gallons of gas to get it. When it was all said, and done, the gas burned to retrieve the wood in the first place likely had more energy in it than the wood that was retrieved. Really amazing the price of wood is not higher.

[Space Cat]

I have several friends with various pellet systems. they work great when they work. Last year there was a sudden shortage of pellets all over the south. I have been hesitant to go with them, simply because the market in the south can be flaky. things come and go from the market for long periods. That said, the supply did increase after that as lots of little producers took up the slack. Still, I can just see after say a big earthquake or something, the pellets disappearing for weeks or months at a time.

What would be your ideal heating system here? The one that will be useful even after a big earthquake in the middle of an abnormally cold winter.

[Dosedmonkey]

Figure something like 10+ hours of labour at least, and several gallons of gas go in to each cubic meter of wood. All to produce more carbon contamination in cities that can not handle it, cutting down less carbon holding trees, to not really produce all that much energy, and burning the equivalent of a couple gallons of gas to get it. When it was all said, and done, the gas burned to retrieve the wood in the first place likely had more energy in it than the wood that was retrieved. Really amazing the price of wood is not higher.

You make a good point. It is expensive in the UK to have a log fire. I'm surprised its not here. Did you mention all the fuel used to move the lumber? A less you have a system of putting it down rivers in places like Canada, chances are it will be on the back of a truck.

I have several friends with various pellet systems. they work great when they work. Last year there was a sudden shortage of pellets all over the south. I have been hesitant to go with them, simply because the market in the south can be flaky. things come and go from the market for long periods. That said, the supply did increase after that as lots of little producers took up the slack. Still, I can just see after say a big earthquake or something, the pellets disappearing for weeks or months at a time.

What would be your ideal heating system here? The one that will be useful even after a big earthquake in the middle of an abnormally cold winter.

Electric heating, with a backup generator if cash is no problem, the generator would be useful for other things too. I guess a gas bottle supplied heater is the cheapest back up, you can use the same gas bottle for emergency cooking facilities. Hell you could use a cooker for a inefficient way to heat your house in an emergency too.



Warning, I have a...
Construction Question

So looked at some websites, how easy is it to estimate how many kilos of gravel/small stones I need to cover a small area of my garden. Is there a simple rough calculation anyone has?

[jamie_m]

calculate the cubic meterage needed then multiply that by the materials bulk density and you then have your wieght. if you work on about 1.4 as your bulk density you should be in the ball park.

[admin]

This is my favorite online construction calculator site.
http://www.blocklayer.com/

They pretty much thought of everything, especially for framing. you can generate images with all the angled cuts layed out for you. I used it for my concrete calculations, and came up with about one cubic foot of extra concrete on my foundation when ordering the truck. Not sure they have a dedicate gravel one, but some of their other calculators will likely do gravel. Believe they have a free phone application too.

7 cubic meters, a full dump truck, of 1-2 inch washed river gravel, set me back about 150,000 pesos last time I ordered. I use it for everything. Drains, concrete, landscaping, so on. anything left over goes in the driveway. In rainy southern Chile, you never have too much drainage.

One of the best things I bought, was a construction calculator. It converts from feet inches to metric with the push of a button. Most everything in Chile construction wise is dimensioned for feet inches (plywood is still 8x4), but will often be sold in metric. I always love the buying a stud, is 2 inches by 4 inches by 3.2 meters long. Only in Chile do you switch to the metric system for the 3rd dimension. Who knows what they use to express time in the 4 dimension. so the calculator allows me to put in say two dimensions in feet or inches, fractions, decimals, and hit a button to continue the calculation in metric, and still get an answer that works in both.

[Dosedmonkey]

Yeah I think 3.2 meters long is like 10.5ft or something, I never figured out why 10.5ft is a standard length of planks.

Conversions apps are always useful, my car tyre pressures are in bar on the car, and the pumps are often PSI at the garages. And I never remember the PSI reading of the tyre pressures...

I learnt to drive in MPH, and remembering the KPH equivalents is always helpful too. It is odd comparing it to the UK, residential is typically 48kph (30mph) in UK, whilst 60kph here. Whilst in the countryside it is in the UK is 97kph (60 mph) whilst here often then not it is 60 KPH up to 80 some times kph. Although autopistas in UK are only 112 kph (70mph) limit by law, and here is 120 kph, in UK people drive up to 100mph due to the good quality and safety of UK autopistas, and lack of serious prosecution until over 100mph. But when you think 100 mph is 160KPH. I think I'd be mad to go over 130kph on any autopistas around here, haha. Although there was some nice straight open bits up near La Serena when I went, which in a descent car wouldn't be hard to do 160kph on.

Anyway, back to gravel. So yeah I guess i need the diameter of one stone, and then that will be my depth, and then just work out the volume using the depth of one stone and the area that I want to gravel... sounds odd but in theory if all the stones are about the same size it should work.

[Space Cat]

Electric heating, with a backup generator if cash is no problem, the generator would be useful for other things too. I guess a gas bottle supplied heater is the cheapest back up, you can use the same gas bottle for emergency cooking facilities. Hell you could use a cooker for a inefficient way to heat your house in an emergency too.

We just received an electricity bill from our landlords and it's CLP$175/kW in winter. So even 1kWh heater will consume CLP$4,200 in a day and CLP$126,000 in a month. But 1kWh is not enough for more than a couple of small rooms. So I guess it's up to CLP$300,000 a month for electricity-based heating of a medium sized house. That's quite a lot.

[admin]

Electric heating, with a backup generator if cash is no problem, the generator would be useful for other things too. I guess a gas bottle supplied heater is the cheapest back up, you can use the same gas bottle for emergency cooking facilities. Hell you could use a cooker for a inefficient way to heat your house in an emergency too.

We just received an electricity bill from our landlords and it's CLP$175/kW in winter. So even 1kWh heater will consume CLP$4,200 in a day and CLP$126,000 in a month. But 1kWh is not enough for more than a couple of small rooms. So I guess it's up to CLP$300,000 a month for electricity-based heating of a medium sized house. That's quite a lot.

Thus, even highly inefficient solar in rainy southern chile starts sounding like a sweet deal.

[Dosedmonkey]

Electric heating, with a backup generator if cash is no problem, the generator would be useful for other things too. I guess a gas bottle supplied heater is the cheapest back up, you can use the same gas bottle for emergency cooking facilities. Hell you could use a cooker for a inefficient way to heat your house in an emergency too.

We just received an electricity bill from our landlords and it's CLP$175/kW in winter. So even 1kWh heater will consume CLP$4,200 in a day and CLP$126,000 in a month. But 1kWh is not enough for more than a couple of small rooms. So I guess it's up to CLP$300,000 a month for electricity-based heating of a medium sized house. That's quite a lot.

I live in a place where if I use the heating, its for a hour or two maximum a day, AND I have lived places where gas has cost a fortune in Santiago. It is mad how different communa vary in services price so much in Santiago.